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Welcome to Cultures Clothing’s “Best of Hip-Hop in 2013” wrap-up article – featuring the Top 200 Hip-Hop Songs of 2013! I received a lot of positive feedback when I published my 2012 wrap-up piece, so I decided to do this article annually! I tried to sift through as much music as humanly possible to present you with the best that this year had to offer. However, before we get to the list, I have a couple of disclaimers:

I LOVE Hip-Hop, but I’m also very critical of it. If I’m going to be honest, I tend to dislike the majority of the commercial rap currently on the market (for legitimate reasons that I’ll expound on later). So, outside of a few exceptions, you’re not going to find a lot of that kind of music on this list. Having said that, I’m not one of those underground Hip-Hop fans that just hates all commercial artists regardless of the quality of their music. I believe that line of thinking is extremely closed-minded and asinine. The only way to truly have an informed opinion about the music is to judge everything on a song by song basis. For example, I’m not a fan of Rick Ross AT ALL. I think he’s a fraud with a good taste in production and limited talent. In spite of that, “Poor Decisions” by Rick Ross ft. Lupe Fiasco & Wale made this list. It’s a solid Hip-Hop song, and Rick Ross actually had (somewhat of) a positive message. Furthermore, I think that the “Started From The Bottom” song by Drake is terrible. However, “From Time” by Drake ft Jhene Aiko ALMOST made the list because it’s a relatable song that has a lot of honesty in it (despite some of Drake’s false bravado). At the end of the day, I just thought that there were better songs that deserved more recognition.

In general, the reason why I dislike a lot of the commercial music is because of the dumbed down content. I have this crazy conspiracy theory where I believe that the record companies decided to gradually dumb down mass-marketed music over time. By doing this, they wouldn’t have to work as hard to create a hit record. It makes sense from a business perspective. If the consumer is willing to accept anything that you give them, then your business will have an easier time pushing off products with lower standards of quality. Whether on not my theory is true, it is a fact that we’ve now gotten to the point where we (as a culture) celebrate mediocrity. The Grammy committee nominated 2Chainz (formerly known as “Tity Boi”) for one of the highest accolades given in music last year. And recently, record companies were fighting over the right to sign Trinidad James after he created one of the most ignorant songs in the history of mankind (“All Gold Everything“). Yes, the song has a catchy beat…but it’s borderline minstrel show (especially if you watch the video). The song is so bad that my sister and I thought that it was a funny parody track. I was laughing hysterically until someone told us that it was a real song *CRINGE*. Seeing these things frustrates me to no end, because I see all of this high-quality music being ignored to champion sub-par nursery rhyme music.

But fear not Hip-Hop fans. I’ve pain-stakingly comprised one of the most legitimate Hip-Hop lists that you’ll find anywhere on the internet. I refuse to celebrate mediocrity in my publication. I take pride in that fact that I’m providing a platform for fans to be able to discover high quality music (with incredible lyricism and amazing production). I realize that there are some of you out there that flip through lists like this and completely dismiss them if you don’t see your favorite artist on there. However, if you do that, then there’s a chance that you’ll miss out on something that you might actually like. So here’s the Hip-Hop Litmus Test. Listen to the three songs posted below:

“Own Appeal” – Oddisee

“Unbreakable Me” – Reks

“A Christmas F**king Miracle” – Run the Jewels (EL-P & Killer Mike)

These are but a few of the dope Hip-Hop songs released in 2013. I would definitely recommend checking out this list if you liked at least one of the tracks posted above. If you didn’t like any of those songs, then we probably have vastly different opinions about what Hip-Hop is. Either way, I hope that the majority of you enjoy this article. Apologies in advance if I omitted any songs that legitimately deserve to be on this list. It’s next to impossible to hear everything that came out this year, so there are bound to be some tracks that I over-looked. Please leave me a comment if you can think of any songs that I left out. I’m looking forward to checking out your suggestions. So, with that said, enjoy the list below. Hopefully this article will introduce readers to some dope artists that aren’t getting nearly enough recognition: